The recent decision by the Progressive Conservative party and the
Alliance party to fold into and become the Canadian Conservative party
does raise some interesting and important questions. What does it mean
to be a Canadian conservative? Who defines the term? Why, at this
juncture and point in Canadian political life, is the more republican
interpretation of the term trumping, censuring out and banishing the
older tory interpretation of what it means to be a conservative?
Those
with little or no sense of the Canadian political journey will not even
realize there was and is a tory tradition that has, in many ways, been
the backbone of Canadian conservatism. It is this High/Red/Radical
Toryism that needs retrieving and remembering at this point in history.
The right of centre, republican read of conservatism is before us night
and day. This needs little comment or commentary.
The 1960s in
Canada (and in many other parts of the world) were an unsettling and
turbulent time. Much was up for redefinition. Two important political
tracts for the times were written, in Canada, in the 1960s: Lament for
a Nation: The Defeat of Canadian Nationalism (1965)and Political
Realignment: A Challenge to Thoughtful Canadians (1967). As we briefly
unpack and unravel these missives, we will get a feel for how Canadians
have, in our history, understood the meaning of conservatism in
different ways. It is as these two traditions lived in tension, there
was some degree of political health. It is as these two traditions have
fragmented, the republican brand of conservatism has redefined Canadian
conservatism in a right of centre manner.
George Grant and Ernest Manning were the authors of these political
missives, and the impact of these texts linger with us to this day.
Grant’s Lament for a Nation: The Defeat of Canadian Nationalism (1965)
stirred and awoke a generation of political theorists and activists to
ponder the fate and future of Canadian nationalism in a new and more
demanding way. It is interesting to note that Lament for a Nation made
quite an appeal to the New Left in Canada. This raises some interesting
questions for Canadian conservatism. Grant emerged from the Tory wing
of conservatism, and his ‘Tory touch’ evoked much in the New Left. Most
assume conservatism is the opposite of the political left. Is it,
though? What is it about the ‘Tory touch’ in Canadian conservatism that
nudges it toward some affinities with the political left?
Manning’s Political Realignment: A Challenge to Thoughtful Canadians
(1967) also claimed to speak from a conservative place. Political
Realignment, in many ways, proposed a very different vision for Canada
than Grant. Manning interpreted conservatism much more through the lens
of the American republican tradition. Manning’s tract for the times
very much appealed to the political and economic right on the political
spectrum. Manning and Grant, Grant and Manning? Who are the real
conservatives? Let us, all too briefly, ponder some of these issues.
Manning was the premier in Alberta (our most American of all provinces)
for twenty-four years. Ernest Manning, in the acknowledgments to
Political Realignment, said, ‘Particularly do I wish to express my
appreciation to my son Preston who researched much of the material
contained herein…’ Political Realignment is divided into six sections:
1.The Need for Reorganization, 2) Elements Required to Rationalize
Federal Party Politics, 3) A Rationalized Two Party Federal Political
System, 4) The Social Conservative Position, 5) A Possible Vehicle for
the Reorganization of Federal Party Politics in Canada and 6)
Conclusion. Most of this political tract for the times (it’s less than
100 pages) is an assault on the Federal government, an apologia for
liberty and freedom on a variety of economic levels, a turning to the
American republican tradition for a model and a distaste and abhorrence
for anything left of the political centre. A sort of cynicism about the
two major political parties and the inability of federal politics to
deliver much of substance is the constant refrain and chorus in this
text that was timed to be published 100 years after Confederation.
Political Realignment became, for many in the 1960s, the conservative
manifesto of the time. And, it was from such a manifesto that Ernest
Manning’s son, Preston Manning, would start the Reform/Alliance party.
The new Conservative party in Canada is very much a child, in many
ways, of Ernest Manning’s brand of republican conservatism, and
Political Realignment is the sacred text of such a clan. Needless to
say, American republicans would be most pleased by Manning’s tract.
Lament for a Nation was written to lament the defeat of Diefenbaker in
the 1963 election. Lester Pearson played nicely into President
Kennedy’s hands, and Kennedy was pleased with him. Much of the history
of the Liberal party in Canada has been a history of finding ways and
means to integrate and annex Canada to the empire to the south of us.
Diefenbaker dared to oppose the Camelot crowd in Washington, and he
felt the wrath of Kennedy for doing so. Lament for a Nation, like
Political Realignment, is a small book, but much is packed into the few
pages that walks a very different path than the trail Manning has hiked
down. Grant, unlike Manning, argued that historic Canadian Toryism was
about building a strong and free True North, and the role of the
Federal government was to provide for the commonweal or commonwealth of
this nation. It was also the role of the Federal government to keep the
Yankees and Uncle Sam at bay. Tory Canadians, Grant argued, have been,
from the founding of this nation, suspicious of the liberty loving
Americans to the south of us. We have been more concerned with order,
justice and good government rather than life, liberty and the pursuit
of happiness. This was the vision of Sir J.A. Macdonald and the best of
the Conservative tradition, Grant pointed out in the clearest way. It
was conservatives, Grant argued, that created such important national
institutions as the CBC, Bank of Canada, CNR and Ontario Hydro.
Conservatives, in short, are not for privatization, deregulation and a
perpetual wariness of Ottawa. Lament for a Nation is a historic,
political and philosophic unpacking of the differences between
conservatism and liberalism (both in Canada and the USA). Grant, in
fact, argues that socialism is more conservative than liberalism. ‘Yet
what is socialism, if it is not the use of the government to restrain
greed in the name of the social good? In actual fact, socialism has
always had to advocate inhibition in this respect. In doing so, was it
not appealing to the conservative idea of social order against the
liberal idea of freedom?’ p.72). Grant is suggesting, unlike Manning,
that a firmer and stronger state (that promotes and protects the common
good)is more in the spirit of conservatism. We can see why Grant’s
understanding of tory conservatism (and its affinity with socialism)
had an appeal to the New Left in the 1960s.
Who then is the real conservative? Grant or Manning? Manning seeks to
conserve American republican notions such as the rights of the
individual, the competitive nature of the marketplace, lighter taxes
and lighter government. Grant seeks to conserve the rights of the
common good and the nation, limit the exploitive power of the
marketplace, tax well and fair so each and all will have access to the
basic goods of this state. Manning seeks to conserve such liberal
principles as liberty, individuality, choice and agency, whereas Grant
seeks to conserve such tory principles as order, the commonweal and a
limiting of choice so the goods of the nation can be equitibly
distributed. Republican conservatism seeks to conserve liberal
principles, and such liberal principles as liberty and individuality
are rather new notions in the human journey. Tory conservatism seeks to
conserve much older notions of the organic nature of society, the
classical notion of the good and responsibilities of one and all to
contribute to the commonweal at both the level of society and the
state.
Who then is the real conservative? Grant or Manning? Much hinges on
what is trying to be conserved. There is no doubt, though, that both
brands of conservatism are part and parcel of the Canadian political
psyche and soul. And, there is no doubt that Grant’s brand of
conservatism is deeper and older than Manning’s brand of conservatism,
and it is Grant’s type of tory conservatism that has played a
significant role in the shaping and making of Canada.
Just a short comment by way of conclusion. William Aberhart was Premier
of Alberta before Ernest Manning, and Aberhart’s Social Credit party
was seen as conservative by many. Stephen Lea*censored* (probably the
finest political theorist and literary humorist Canada has produced)
travelled to Western Canada in the 1930s, and his book, My Discovery of
the West (1937) pondered the politics of western Canada. Lea*censored*,
like Grant, was a tory conservative. Aberhart, like Manning, was a
republican conservative. Needless to say, Lea*censored* had little good
to say about the conservatism of the Social Credit and Aberhart.
Who then are the real conservatives? Lea*censored* and Grant or
Aberhart and Manning? I think the answer is obvious the more we
understand the political difference between American and Canadian
intellectual history.
Professor Ron Dart teaches in the department of Political Science/
Philosophy/Religious Studies at University College of the Fraser Valley
in Abbotsford, BC. He is the author of The Red Tory Tradition: Ancient
Roots, New Routes (1999).
rsd